Fire on
the Amazon is a cheapozoid Roger Corman flick about
the disappearing Brazilian rain forest. The film is
only 75 minutes long, and about half of it is a
complete digression from the main story!

A
famous indigenous environmentalist is killed.
Although it is obvious that the money interests
wanted him out of the way, the murder is performed
with an arrow to feign an Indian attack, and the
local police somehow arrest a taciturn Indian who
"hangs himself" in his cell after signing a full
confession. When his fellow tribesmen come for his
body, a local North American environmentalist
(Sandra Bullock) and a magazine reporter from the
States (Craig Sheffer) try to talk to them, but they
are unresponsive. On the spur of the moment, the
Americans follow the Indians up the river to their
reservation.

Pause.
Let's think about that. Sheffer and Bullock see the
Indians paddling upstream, so they just decide to
commandeer a canoe and follow. They don't know the
terrain, they don't know how far they will be
traveling, they have no supplies - not even insect
repellent, and they're in a stolen canoe paddling
through the unfamiliar jungle, surrounded by crocs,
snakes, the greedy bad guys, stone age tribesmen,
and probably O.J. looking for the real killer. Not
to mention the owner of the canoe.

Check.
That all makes sense so far.

And
that was the most logical part of the movie!

Soon
thereafter, the reporter is shot by an unknown
assailant and the canoe overturns, so the two
adventurers just decide to saunter through the
Amazon rain forest in a random direction, even
though night is approaching, they are soaking wet,
and one of them has a gunshot wound. Well, as luck
would have it, they are captured by indigenous
people. The sojourn in the native village is the
thirty minute digression I spoke of earlier. During
this time, the confusing plot simply grinds to a
halt so that the Americans can exchange cultural
enlightenment with the villagers and bodily fluids
with one another. Fortunately for the helpless
Americans, their kidnappers are not real natives but
movie natives, and therefore live in harmony with
the spirits of nature and possess the wisdom of
their ancestors, including secret herbs that cure
the wound, and more secret herbs that make Sandra
Bullock want to make nice-nice for hours with the
reporter (whom she had previously detested). These
native guys have enough secret herbs and spices to
open up their own fast food chain. Furthermore, they
have more advanced forensic medicine than Quincy and
CSI put together. They perform an autopsy on the guy
who "hanged himself," and are able to conclude that
he was dead before the hanging, killed by Colonel
Mustard, in the conservatory, with a lead pipe.

The
search is then on for Colonel Mustard, but the
lovebirds are still under the spell of those secret
herbs and spices, so they are constantly sneaking a
quick feel on the dirt roads, and playing kissy-face
in sleazy taverns filled with environmental
terrorists and competitors in the Anthony Quinn
look-alike contest. All of this romance is pursued
with the same nonchalance you'd have with your best
girly on the streets of London.

So what
happens in the story?

Oh,
yeah.

This
must take the award for the most abrupt deus ex
machina ending ever. After their investigation
pisses off everyone in South America, Bullock and
Sheffer are pursued by about a zillion heavily armed
bad guys, including all possible corrupt local
authorities with Pancho Villa moustaches. The two
lovebirds are finally trapped on a dock, lacking a
boat, and facing a horde of approaching baddies.
Their predicament includes machine guns in their
faces, water at their backs, and no place left to
run - with only a minute left in the film's
running time ...

How can
Pauline escape this Peril?

The
reporter's buddy, a guy we saw for only a minute in
the opening scene, suddenly arrives from the sky in
a seaplane to rescue our lovebirds at the last
second!

Unfortunately,
Bullock had been severely wounded during their
escape and dies from her wounds, but not before
making a tearful deathbed environmental speech on
the plane, after which some informative word slides
tell us how much of the rain forest is lost each
year.

You
want to argue that the director couldn't do much
with such a poor script? OK, I'll concede that the
concept was poor. I'll give you that, but it was
genius compared to the execution. The production
values are abysmal. The photographic quality is
about equal to your dad's home movies, and the sound
track is both inappropriate and cheesy. In other
words, director Luis Llosa defied the odds by taking
a bad script and making it worse!

Llosa's
Hollywood career was not over, however, not by a
long shot. Defying all logic, some producers saw the
incoherent, amateurish mess that was Fire on the
Amazon and were inspired to bankroll Llosa with $45
million to helm a film with Sharon Stone, James
Woods, and Sly Stallone! To be honest, the results
of that decision didn't work out that poorly for the
investors. Stone and Stallone were then major stars,
and The Specialist amassed nearly $60 million at the
domestic box office, and exceeded $100 million
worldwide!

Despite
the above average box office results, the quality
of The Specialist was predictably bad. It scored a
cellar-dwelling 4% at Rotten Tomatoes, making it
one of the
worst reviewed films of 1994, with a lower
RT valuation than such monumental failures as The
Flintstones and Major League Two. Here is our review.
Astoundingly, it was not Sharon Stone's
worst-reviewed film of that year! Her other
picture, Intersection, stumbled across the Rotten
Tomatoes finish line without receiving a single
positive review. Neither of Sharon's classics was
the worst film of that year. It's Pat, the Movie
and Police Academy: Mission to Moscow are rated
the 34th and 51st worst movies of all time by
IMDb. Because of the stiff competition, Llosa
failed to make the worst film of 1994, but The
Specialist was close to the career nadir for
everyone involved with it except, of course, for
Llosa himself, since it would have been almost
impossible for him to sink to a level anywhere
near Fire on the Amazon.

Llosa
is now producing TV programs in Peru. Do you think
anyone there believes him when he saunters into the
company cafeteria, takes a deep sip of his Inca Cola
and begins to regale his available listeners with
tales of having once directed a hundred million
dollar movie starring Sharon Stone? They must think
he is kidding.

And, in
a very real way, he is.

NUDITY REPORT

Sandra
Bullock does a sex scene in a
torch-lit native hut. It is a
fairly hot 84-second scene,
but none of Sandra's naughty
bits are ever seen clearly.

The meaning of the IMDb score:
7.5 usually indicates a level of
excellence equivalent to about three and
a half stars from the critics. 6.0
usually indicates lukewarm watchability,
comparable to approximately two and a
half stars from the critics. The fives
are generally not worthwhile unless they
are really your kind of material,
equivalent to about a two star rating
from the critics, or a C- from our
system. Films rated below five are
generally awful even if you like that
kind of film - this score is roughly
equivalent to one and a half stars from
the critics or a D on our scale.
(Possibly even less, depending on just
how far below five the rating is.

My own guideline: A means the movie is so
good it will appeal to you even if you
hate the genre. B means the movie is not
good enough to win you over if you
hate the genre, but is good enough to
do so if you have an open mind about
this type of film. C means it will only
appeal to genre addicts, and has no
crossover appeal. (C+ means it has no
crossover appeal, but will be
considered excellent by genre fans,
while C-
indicates that it we found it to be a
poor movie although genre addicts find
it watchable). D means you'll hate it
even if you like the genre. E means that you'll
hate it even if you love the genre. F means that the film
is not only unappealing
across-the-board, but technically
inept as well. Any film rated C- or
better is recommended for fans of that
type of film. Any film rated B- or
better is recommended for just about
anyone. We don't score films below C-
that often, because we like movies and
we think that most of them have at
least a solid niche audience. Now that
you know that, you should have serious
reservations about any movie below C-.

Based on this description,
Scoop says, "It's an F. If the
female star had remained unknown, the
film would probably never have seen the
light of day at all. Since Ms Bullock
became an established star on or near
the A-list, some people may want to see
her near-nude scene, which is not so
good, but beats the hell out of the rest
of the film."